Cameron Norrie and Jacob Fearnley played a Battle of Britain yesterday at Roland Garros, with their match marred by a series of explosions and fanfare.
It truly felt like an all-out war given the backdrop even if the former cruised to a straight sets victory over his compatriot.
However, speaking after the match, the 29-year-old insisted it was not easy to contend with.
It was to be expected though with Simonne-Mathieu the closest court to Paris Saint-Germain’s Parc Des Princes.
Normally this would have little impact, but there was the small matter of the Parisian giants playing in the Champions League final that night. Those fans had little care for whatever tennis was being played as they soared to a maiden title in Munich.
Cam Norrie reacts to volatile atmosphere at French Open
Asked about how he felt dealing with such a loud and brash atmosphere, arguably in stark contrast to what tennis players would usually expect, Norrie did admit that it unnerved him.
After all, constant fireworks and beeping cars are hardly the best consistent noise to endure when seeking perfect concentration.
He still battled through, but not without some frustration.
Norrie noted, when asked if he’d experienced anything like it before: ‘No I haven’t. Actually, I was putting my bag down and the umpire said “Yeah there’s just a couple of fireworks, we’ll just play on,” and I was thinking oh it’ll just be a few of them in the warm-up.
‘But it was the most random times. It would go away for kind of 15-20 minutes and then come back. I think I was 6-5 serving and then one suddenly felt like it was right next to me went off. I had to stop.
‘It was another factor, pretty difficult for both of us to be playing with that going on. It felt like it was going on within the stadium. But yeah, not had that before.’
Cam Norrie vs Novak Djokovic head-to-head record
Like many within the sport, Norrie has a pretty torrid head-to-head record against Novak Djokovic.
In fact, their most recent meeting actually came just last month in Geneva, which once again saw the Serbian extend his numerous successes against the Brit.
Now, in their five meetings, Djokovic has won all of them.
This includes big matches such as the round robin at the ATP end-of-year finals in 2021, the Davis Cup finals and the Wimbledon semi-final in 2022.
Norrie is one of many to have endured a winless record against one of the greatest players in the sport’s history, and it will take something monumental to change that here at the French Open.
